


Winter's Tales: The Laboratory

by AllTheBellsInVenice



Series: Winter's Tales [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Dom Sherlock, F/M, One-Shot, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlolly - Freeform, Sub Molly, it's for an experiment molly, winter's tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:34:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTheBellsInVenice/pseuds/AllTheBellsInVenice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late on a winter's night, Sherlock enters Molly's laboratory with a very particular question in his mind. Being a narrative of his perspective, and of what happened after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter's Tales: The Laboratory

Sherlock hesitated, looking at his leather-gloved fingers where they curled around the door handle. The narrow window in the lab’s door intimated a faint glow of light from within---yes, she was there. Right where he’d known she would be.

Paperwork. Always up late the night before a day off, so diligent, forever giving her best to her patients. Filling out all the forms in her distinctive handwriting. Meticulous. Small. Tight. 

Sherlock scowled. 

_Stupid, stupid. At least try to keep your damned libido under control before you even open the door._

Inhale. 

So: the seduction of Molly Hooper. All variables accounted for. 

Familiar, nonthreatening location. Relative privacy. Enough time. No (known) recent events in her life that could precipitate an unreceptive mood. No changes made to his person, clothing, or tools.

No condoms. No need, of course. He’d deliberately discarded the ones he usually carried---unused since Serbia---as a concession to the less convenient urges of the animal he was forced to inhabit. This encounter was emphatically _not_ for his own gratification. His animal could be dangerous…best to remove temptation. 

Silently, Sherlock reviewed his plan and once again deemed it sound, though risky. Even with his precise assessment of the subject’s personality and psychological state, it remained possible that he was wrong about Molly, that he would not succeed. He indulged in an instant’s reflection on the fact that, if this particular methodology proved ineffective, her reaction to it might well preclude any opportunity to attempt an alternative approach.

Though he was reasonably certain she would not revoke his lab privileges in the event of failure---

_Stop._ His fingers twitched on the handle. _This notion of failure---not applicable---ridiculous. Any result will be valid, of course. Because whether she proves receptive or…not…I will know, once and for all, who Molly Hooper really is. And knowledge is everything._

Exhale. 

Sherlock turned the handle, stepped inside the lab.

He walked leisurely forward, locking eyes on his subject even as he opened all his senses. Those big brown eyes of hers---pupils dilating at the sight of him, per usual. Her slight gasp---yes, promising. Air a bit warmer than normal---so she hadn’t noticed that he’d adjusted the thermostat. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that the stepstool was still where he’d placed it earlier. Perfect.

“Sherlock,” Molly said, the usual quaver in her gentle voice. “How did you get in? The department has been closed for hours. Everyone has gone home.”

_Obviously,_ he did not say. “A few locked doors and a couple of alarms do not signify, Molly. Surely you know that by now.”

That made her smile for some reason. Molly’s beautiful smile. Was it beautiful, why was it beautiful? Hadn’t he decided her mouth was too small? Oh, pointless. He threw the thought aside with a blink.

“I suppose you won’t tell me how you got in?” she was saying, or something like.

“You suppose correctly,” he replied. And with that, he’d had enough of such trivialities. “Molly, I need your help with an experiment. Now.” 

“Oh,” was all she had to say. Cue the nominal resistance, her usual stammer. 

“I, um, I cleared away all my equipment already, so---“

“Not a problem,” he broke in. “The experiment I have in mind is psychosocial in nature.”

“Psychosocial,” she replied, quirking up one side of her mouth in that way she had. “Not exactly up your street, is it, that sort of thing?”

_Of course it is; have you met me?_ But he said only, “I gather the data I need, when I need it. Now,” he continued, “clear a space on the counter, about a meter square. Wherever’s most convenient.” 

There: the opening gambit of a Socratic persuasion set. Classic, simple, effective. But the tactic could only succeed if she acceded to this, his first demand. Hands in his pockets, he waited.

And as he stood watching her, Sherlock felt his pulse bound when she moved to comply. But then, his own body’s reaction to the sight of Molly’s obedience---her compliance with a thousand and one little orders, many he’d given right in this room---was previously known data. Data regarding himself, and thus beside the point, except insofar that it had informed his desire to attempt…this. 

By the time she’d finished clearing an area of the counter to his specifications, he’d firmly leashed his autonomic response. Time to move on.

“I need you for this experiment, Molly,” he told her. “A case study, really. I want to make a few observations with you as my subject.”

“Me?” 

He smiled wolfishly. “Yes. You.” 

As Molly hesitated, Sherlock used one foot to shove the stepstool a few inches over so that it was right in front of the cleared area. Time for his second command, this one a bit more unusual than the last. 

“Remove your shoes and your lab coat, step onto the first step, and face the counter,” he told her, and noted the exact moment when she allowed herself to follow his direction. 

She wasn’t anxious, he saw. In fact, Molly was smiling as she toed off her sensible shoes, laid aside her lab coat, and mounted the stepstool in her stocking feet. Only Molly would grin during a strange moment like this.

He let his gaze travel down her body, insolent, making sure she saw him do it.

And oh, now she was blushing. He rather liked that. 

“Yes, that will work,” he said, almost to himself. Time for the next push…approaching dangerous territory. “Now, bend over onto the countertop.”

“Sherlock, what…” 

She was turning toward him, a little frown on her face. So: reiterate, then appeal to emotion. 

“Face down, on the counter, Molly. I need data; I need to observe your reactions.” He pitched his voice low to soothe, to mesmerise. “Will you help me, Molly? Please.”

And with that, Molly’s frown softened, and she laid herself down on the counter, as willing as he could wish. Yes. Oh, yes.

“And I suppose someone’s life depends on this data? Somehow?” she squeaked, in an adorable attempt to deflect the ignominy of her position. Sherlock only laughed.

He let the moment stretch out, allowing Molly time to process what was happening, give her time to wonder what could be next. He watched her narrowly, awaiting the instant when she began to relax---

There.

“Molly. Raise your skirt.”

If she was what he suspected her to be, if he’d read her right, if he knew Molly Hooper as he believed he did, she’d obey. If not, he could go no further. He ignored the dryness in his mouth.

Five heartbeats. Ten. 

“Sherlock.” Molly’s voice had acquired an edge. “What are you doing? Why---why do you want me to do this?” 

Would he lose her? Would it end here?

“Do you trust me, Molly?” he asked. In his pockets, his hands clenched, unclenched. 

“I...yes.”

Time to clarify; he owed her that. Sherlock stepped toward Molly, there where she lay just as he’d bid her. Leaning over the counter close beside her, he looked into that sweet face, into those large, worried eyes. 

He must not let her worry blossom into fear. 

“Molly, I want you to know that you are safe with me, always. I will do nothing to harm you. You will help me be the judge of that.”

Gently, he laid his gloved hand on the small of her back. Time, now, to reveal her escape route, to assure her of her power to end the proceedings.

“I will stop everything and draw away from you immediately whenever you say the word ‘skull.’ Anytime you like.” He watched her face carefully for any sign that she recognized these rules, this game. “I may also require the word from you, and then I will stop if you _fail_ to say it. Say ‘skull’ now, Molly.”

She held his eyes, still a little confused. Innocent. She hadn’t played such games before. “Skull,” she replied.

“Again.”

“Skull,” she said, a little louder. Fearless. She understood now. Oh, Molly.

“Good girl,” he told her, a shiver of heat rising in his body with the taste of those words.

He stood upright behind her, keeping his hand on ¬her back. “So, now, raise your skirt. This too is necessary.”

A deep breath, and another. And Sherlock watched, spellbound, as Molly drew her hands down to her waist and pulled her skirt up over her pert little arse. 

It was happening, just as he’d hoped…no, calculated. She was doing this for him. Because he’d told her to. Yes, Molly Hooper. Yes.

He lifted his hand for a moment, tucking the skirt’s fabric underneath her, and then returned the hand, possessively, to the small of her back. Licking his lips, Sherlock took one breath, then gave her his final order.

“Now lower your tights…and take down your pants with them.”

In this last, burning moment, Sherlock stood over Molly like a colossus as the rest of the world fell away. He watched her blushing and panting where she lay before him, and knew in an instant of blazing certainty that she was about to yield. That she would obey. 

There. Molly was pulling down her tights and knickers, her bottom and her pink pussy coming into view for him. And slowly, slowly, his fantasies and his reality blurred together, shifted, then snapped into focus as one.

His blood thundered in his ears.

His Molly was aroused. Very plainly. Even as he watched, her hips gave a helpless wriggle, her eyes squeezed shut in a deeply flushed face. Not one woman in a thousand would have fearlessly followed his lead in this, would have trusted him so far, reacted this way to his audacity, and yet here she was. 

He, he had done this to her. And Sherlock looked down on Molly as from a great height, while a spreading sense of rightness and utter control expanded into every corner of his being. The time for hesitation was over. Now he knew exactly what to do. 

“Ah. Beautiful, Molly,” he told her, and savoured the way the tension in her face smoothed out, even as the pulse visible in her neck bounded in time with his own. “You’re doing beautifully. See if you can reach your arms up and hold onto the other side of the counter. Yes, well done.”

She was his to touch, now, surrendered. His gloved fingers cupped her right buttock, then her left. He spanned her bottom with his large hand, pressing her cheeks together and pushing her one way, then the other. And Molly was keening, high in her throat.

“Lovely, Molly,” Sherlock said, feeling a wicked smile curve his lips. “And...what’s this?...So...very...wet.”

She moaned at that, the frank carnality of it, and Sherlock’s grin widened. _Oh, yes, my needy Molly. Were you hoping I’d be too polite to point out that little fact?_

God, her pussy, so inviting. It had been far too long. And her smallest entrance, peeping at him so shyly. Curious, he slid his thumb down between her buttocks. Closer, closer. 

“So exquisitely wet, Molly. Like a pink rose dipped in oil...and look, a sweet pink rosebud to match,” he said, tugging gently at the skin just beside the tightly furled opening. Noting her shiver, her tension. Virginal? It was statistically more likely.

“And so sensitive. Yes.” 

His cock throbbed in his trousers. Why not unzip, stroke himself? He had two hands, after all, and ample dexterity to properly attend to Molly at the same time. It would be easy. And it would feel so good. 

Then he frowned, his lip curling. Clearly the animal he lived inside was asserting itself again, making demands he’d no intention of carrying out now. Infuriating!

He drew back his hand from her arse. Molly whimpered at the lost contact.

“Quiet,” he snapped, and smirked to see her startle. “I’m removing my gloves now. There,” he said, soothingly, stroking her hip with his bare hand as he tucked his gloves into his pocket. “That’s better, isn’t it.”

Both his hands were on her now. Both for her, none for him, much safer. 

Ah, the feel of her…He’d not counted on her having such skin. So soft, silken. Unmarked. Begging to be spanked into rosiness. 

No, he should not, must not indulge that urge tonight. However…

“So lovely, Molly. And you’re being so brave, so brave for me.” He let his fingers move closer to her center, the contact setting off sparks in his brain. “This experiment is an important one. Precise observations are crucial to my inquiry. What would I observe, I wonder, if I touched you…here?”

And Sherlock slid languid fingertips over her cunt, opening her, mapping her, his Molly, at last. His eyes fell closed to feel her softness, her wetness, her heat.

And Molly, lovely Molly, she actually laughed aloud with pleasure, a note of delirium sweetening the tone. Sherlock exulted, reveled in it, the power to have brought her to this state, wriggling red-faced under his hand in her own pathology lab. How many lonely nights in hospital had he imagined---?

Oh, why not go further? He’d pleasure her, reward her for being as beautifully submissive as he’d anticipated. A logical impulse, this one: if he satisfied her lavishly tonight, she would be likely to want more in future. So.

He slipped a finger deep into her body. And another, observing the way she lifted her bottom, begging him silently for more fullness, more pressure. Loving her soft moan as his fingertips licked at her clit. 

He quirked up a corner of his mouth. To Molly, he could speak in the language of his thoughts, and know she’d understand. 

“Classic female sexual response. Vasocongestion and blushing of the vulva. Lengthening of the vaginal canal. Clitoris slips out of hiding. Lubrication…such a quantity, Molly. Any interest in saying your word? I thought not.” 

No, it was unlikely she’d give her safeword now. She’d made herself his to play with.

“Lift up that pretty behind for me. Higher.” Oh, what a good girl she was. 

He could have her, penetrate her if he chose. Now, right now. She’d allow him, he was sure of it. Fuck her hard, make her squeal and come on his cock... 

No. No. Sherlock felt his lips part in a snarl as he worked her pussy with mounting fury, bringing all his skills to bear, all his powers of observation. Endeavoring to prove something to her, or to himself, he knew not what.

It would be so good, his body whispered. So easy, just to push into that delicious cunt. Look at her face, she wants you, she’d love it. And it would be just the once, it wouldn’t matter, just this one time…

_Shut. Up._

But before he knew it, he found himself pressing forward, mounting her, dropping his weight onto her back and driving his hard cock against her hip. Savouring the way she pushed back onto his hand, her little feet on tiptoe, her back arching against him, pleading for more. 

Sherlock set his mouth. He should not have done it—impulsive---his body too close to hers, too much. Good thing he hadn’t unfastened his trousers---but at least Molly’s moans had taken on a new urgency.

“You like being under me, little Molly? Give me your word or I’ll stop.”

“Skull!” she cried without hesitation. “Oh god, Sherlock…”

Molly sobbed, stiffened---

“Come for me, Molly. Yes. There we are,” Sherlock said, keeping his voice cool and detached as Molly wailed into the sleeve of her blouse, bucking underneath him. His cock pulsed painfully, still so steely where he’d ground it against her slender hip, and he bit his lip hard to keep from disgracing himself in his trousers.

Desperate, this beast he inhabited. Always trying to force him to breed, despite what he himself had to say about it. No. He would not give in, not this time, not ever, and his body would just have to shut up, shut up, shut up.

“Oh, good girl. My good girl,” Sherlock told her, caressing her soft arse, her hip. He let his forehead drop against her shoulder. 

Soon his heart slowed its headlong rhythm, even as he felt the last flutters of her orgasm, faint against his cradling fingers.

Molly’s body was relaxing under his, growing languid in her afterglow, and Sherlock lifted his full weight off her to let her breathe. The lemon scent of her hair filled his brain, and for long moments he watched her face grow still and calm, inches from his own.

Finally, Sherlock backed away from her and stood upright. He averted his eyes from the sight of her, still lying there where she’d given herself up to him so completely, beyond all his hopes. Why did Molly have to be so lovely, to trust him far past what he deserved? His hands shook as he did up his coat once more.

Suddenly and completely, Sherlock wanted to leave. From one moment to the next, the prospect of further interaction had become unbearable. Escape, escape. Enough, Sherlock, you fool. Let the poor girl alone.

Molly was stirring and beginning to look around. “No. Eyes forward,” he told her, wiping her fluids off his hand with his pocket handkerchief, and heartbreakingly, she obeyed him. Such a good…no.

“Thank you, Molly,” Sherlock said into the heavy silence, still not looking at the half-naked woman bent over the countertop. “We shall talk...later.” One careful step away from her, two, and he left the lab, tucking away his handkerchief as he went. 

Once he’d closed the door resolutely behind him, Sherlock made for the emergency stairwell, not wanting to box himself into the lifts, needing to move. Needing to stomp out the burn in his body. But on the second landing he stopped short, staring sightlessly up at the sign that glowed EXIT.

_Selfish. Cruel, Sherlock. You left her there alone, your Molly. Without a word of explanation, with barely any sort of farewell, after what you did. What the hell is wrong with you, you’re sick, broken, and this is why no one can stand to be near you for long. How dare you touch her, you don’t deserve to love someone like---_

He bared his teeth, breath fogging in the chill air. “I don’t. Love. Her. I just want to—to—“

Abruptly, Sherlock moved backward into the corner of the landing, into the spot he knew was a blind spot in the hospital’s surveillance network. Tearing his coat open, he fumbled at his trousers, jerked down his zip.

“Fuck it. Fuck all of it,” he snarled over the vicious whispers in his skull, the sound echoing down the stairwell into the darkness. Moving quickly, he took himself in a familiar grip, drawing his coat close with his other hand to keep the worst of the cold at bay.

Molly, sweet Molly, bent over the countertop, pulling down her knickers for him. Molly on her knees, yes, and the warmth of her mouth as she willingly gagged on his cock. Molly on her back, in her bedroom, wrapping her legs around his waist and cradling his head so tenderly against her breasts. Molly on her belly, on his bed, his teeth on her nape as he reach back to chastise her bottom soundly. Molly’s lush brown hair gathered tight in his fist, her helpless cry of pleasure-pain as he came deep inside her---

And for one blessed moment, Sherlock’s brain went silent as he spilled into his handkerchief.

***

An hour later, Sherlock sat in his darkened sitting room, in his familiar chair, contemplating the lighted screen of his phone. 

He’d pulled himself together, taken the time to remember that as she’d trusted him, he too trusted her. True, he ought not to have left her as he did. But perhaps, very likely, she’d understand. 

Molly was rather wonderful that way.

Still. It would not do to keep silent, and it would be worse if she texted him first. He must be the one to reach out to her, tonight. Now.

Almost anything would do, he decided. But something polite, noncommittal, utterly nonthreatening. Suitably detached. Aside from everything else, he supposed, his access to the morgue was at stake. 

Finally, he began to type. 

_I trust you got safely home.  
SH_

The text went through, and almost immediately, his chest gave an odd sort of throb---his screen was displaying the animated ellipsis that meant Molly was typing a reply. His phone chimed.

_Yes I did._

A prompt, frank reply. No hesitation or equivocation or sarcasm. Clearly she was not angry. Sherlock felt himself relax a little. 

But wait…more of the ellipsis. Another chime.

_So, you really have to tell me. What was that experiment all about?_

Sherlock smiled. He could hear her voice in his head, and if he knew Molly Hooper at all---and yes, he most definitely did---her voice sounded…amused. Curious.

Well, why not. He did owe her an explanation. And perhaps the door between them was not entirely closed, after all. Now then…

Sherlock typed, then smiled as he hit send. An invitation…and, he fancied, a dare.

_If you care to continue, come to Baker Street tomorrow, 16:00. Wear a skirt._


End file.
